Appleby College - Argus Yearbook (Oakville, Ontario Canada)

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Thursday Activities ... another editorial ' ' Get up and get moving! UWi ■K p H(MKS ? H The Thursday Activity Program has survived a three year period of experimentation with only mo- derate success. At the end of the third year it seems unhkely that the program will become permanent in the Appleby schedule unless a few essential changes are made. The purpose of the program is to provide the boys with free time which they can use constructively. Ideally, it would have worked on a laissez-faire system. It was expect- ed that the boys would take an in- terest, and get involved in the various activities on their own free will. Such has not been the case for the vast majority. Too many people have chosen to ignore the many opportunities which are of- fered. They would rather spend Thursday afternoons asleep on their beds or tuned into Mork and Mindy (the latter has become the most popular activity from 8:00 to 8:30). The fact is that too many people do not know how to manage their free time. Three years of the program made this quite evident. For such a program to be a suc- cess everyone must get involved. Up to now there has been little evidence of complete participation simply because people lack the initiative. The obvious solution is to make activities compulsory. This step has already been taken, but there is still some difficulty in getting everyone to attend. Many people have developed a certain prowess for avoiding their acti- vities once they have signed up for them and many more have manag- ed to pick two activities that meet on a limited basis. The latter is the ultimate display of total lack of initiative. It is clear that the answer to the problem of how to make Thursday activities successful is not an easy one. Simply making the program compulsory does not provide the solution, though it does take us one step closer. If we consider the present system of freedom of choice to be extreme then the other extreme is to desig- nate each boy to two activities, which the school feels will help him to develop into the best person possible. The latter extreme is too harsh and would create a great deal of opposition. However it is closer to the answer than the pre- sent system is, because it exposes the boy to activities which will be most beneficial. This is the ulti- mate goal of the program, and therefore the best system will be structured around making certain that the activity is in the best in- 132

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THANKS FOR 50 YEARS HILDA!!! W 50 j ears fbrated the h ' , « ' ' riend mhn WEDNESDAY MARCH U. 1979 A; pi ' ' College for 50 -eafs. rt e orted jrounf Boys Cheer cook for 50 years ' i . .i f»lertt«v. A!l Apprupnalcly. !» •■ ■ hiin- on-d her m iht- M-l »(l Uininj; Uav frum Iht- hoy ' s and s«aff. a | 1J mttlilliiin lr «n tlH- txMrd • ! iru l» -- But ni ' ««■ »■ • ' ( ll.ill.l».iy VrtWld iipT -T 1-1 an huur Nl ■ pljtnn] oiw o( Ihr If • A soon a she hf.it iht-M- ptjns. she «hnMt ' ' ' lu walk. (HI! ■■

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terests of the boy ' s future. Somehow this must be accompHsh- ed without creating any resentment from the boy. The first step would be to do away with those activities that qualify as recreation. The best acti- vity is one which will contribute to the boy ' s cultural development. Recreation already takes up a large part of most peoples ' spare time, and has little to offer in the way of culture. Once this is done the list would include several very benefi- cial activities. The list would then be divided up into different cate- gories depending on the nature of the activities. Each boy would have to choose two activities from se- perate lists. The lists would be di- vided up so as to assure that a boy could not pick two similiar acti- Tim Pike